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The UK will step up its massive coronavirus vaccination program this week, offering shots to millions more as the country closes its borders to anyone who has not given negative evidence.
Vaccines will be offered to the people aged From the age of 70, and those who are considered “clinically extremely vulnerable” from Monday, the third and fourth priority group. Prime Minister Boris Johnson called it a “significant milestone” in the vaccination effort.
The government intends to offer the vaccine to all adults in the UK before September, Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said on Sunday. So far, more than 4.3 million people have received their first dose, according to Bloomberg vaccine follower.
Meanwhile, ministers will close travel aisles with other countries from Monday, meaning all visitors from abroad will require a negative test result within 72 hours of the trip to enter Britain. Health officials will intensify checks to make sure they are isolated at home for the next 10 days.
England no longer listens to Johnson’s closure orders
The government has not ruled out establishing quarantine hotels or using GPS trackers to make sure people stay in place. Raab told Sky News he would consider “every possibility” to enforce Covid’s rules and prevent new variants of the virus from derailing UK vaccination efforts.
Forcing travelers to stay in hotels dedicated to arrival would still put the UK many months behind other countries, such as Australia, which introduced the policy last March.
England is in its third national closure, with schools closed and people ordered to stay home as the government tries to control the rise in cases over the winter. There are currently more than 37,000 hospitalized coronavirus patients and the daily death toll remains high, with 671 deaths recorded on Sunday.
The Johnson administration sets its hopes on the vaccination program to end the crisis. The National Health Service will start this week on the two new groups because some areas of England have already vaccinated the two main priority groups: those over 80 and front-line health and care workers.
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Ten new mass vaccination centers will be opened this week, including a racecourse, a cathedral and a rugby field, bringing the total to 17 in England, and more remain. There are also 1,200 hospitals and sites run by GPs that offer vaccines.
“We have a long way to go and there will certainly be challenges ahead, but working together we are making tremendous progress in our fight against this virus,” Johnson said in a statement.
The current blockade will be reviewed in mid-February, but ministers have warned there will be no speedy return to normalcy. Raab said the restrictions would only begin to rise in “early spring” and that it would be a gradual process rather than a “big bang”.
Row of benefits
The profound impact of ten months of restrictions on businesses and workers makes the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rishi Sunak, increasingly under pressure to do more to help poorer families.
The UK’s main opposition Labor Party will increase the heat on Monday by forcing a vote in the House of Commons to extend profits (worth more than £ 1,000 a year) beyond 31 March. Raab said the rise in universal credit was a “temporary measure” and March’s budget would support it.
The Times reported Saturday that Sunak plans to make a one-time payment of £ 500 ($ 680) to benefit recipients. But a powerful group of conservative lawmakers, the Northern Research Group, has warned that this would not be enough, and has insisted that Sunak should extend the benefits.
Ministers also face calls for more to be done for the sectors of the economy hardest hit by virus restrictions: British chambers of commerce warned last week that many companies are “on their knees”.
A new government grant program for airports and their ground operations to help with the costs of closing travel corridors was well received by the British Airline Pilots Association, but warned that the aviation situation was “desperate” and they called for a broader recovery plan.
For Eurostar International Ltd., whose passenger trains connect London with Paris, Brussels and Amsterdam, the prospects are equally bleak. Traffic fell 95% even before the latest measures, prompting the London First lobby to write to Sunak urging him to act quickly to safeguard the operator’s future.
Eurostar Concern for survival grows as UK companies make a rescue lobby